


Hand In My Pocket

by ExistentialMalaises



Series: Dancing To A Different Drum [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bonding over booze and blunt, F/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-26 11:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18281843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExistentialMalaises/pseuds/ExistentialMalaises
Summary: Michael seeks out Maria at the end of her shift.





	Hand In My Pocket

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm back with more Maria/Michael.  
> Though written separately, this short story is a continuation of [_Wild Thoughts_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18262514), and will refer back to what happened in it a few times.

“We’re closed, Guerin.” Maria spun around, hiding her fright, when the door clanged shut behind her, and Michael walked up to the bar at the Wild Pony. She rolled back her shoulders and returned to storing the last three glasses underneath the counter. As the week was drawing to its end, she’d have to check all the numbers and count the damages. She was hoping for a good week.

“Aw, come on, one drink? I even brought money,” Michael curved over the counter so he could see her, then showed Maria his wallet.

With a sigh, Maria blew a lock of hair out of her face. He was giving her his most convincing smile, and she found it harder to resist him. The cheapest bottle of whisky had been opened earlier tonight, and she could use a drink herself. “Fine.” Grabbing the bottle, Maria walked towards to door, waiting at the entrance until he followed her out with a questioning look on his face. “Told you we’re closed.” Maria shoved the bottle in his chest, ignoring the heat that radiated from his body, and locked the door.

It was a quiet walk to the vacant parking lot. Aside from their Chevy pickups, there was nothing but a vast plain of wobbly dirt ground and clouded blackness above. The sparsely-located streetlights elongated their shadows in front of them, their figures close to each other, but not touching.

Michael opened the trunk of his truck, and seated himself with a slight hop. Maria, instead of sitting next to him, stared at the blue truck he had had since high school. A decade older, dirty, and with some dents and corrosion, but still running. She wondered why he wasn’t taking better care of it. Hers was still in a good condition, in part because of Michael. He had to pay off his tab somehow over the years.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Michael asked as he opened the bottle, and gulped the whisky down. “Ahh. That’s good.”

After she sat down next to him, Michael handed the bottle to her. She placed the wet rim of the bottle between her lips. The smokey savor of the liquid immediately hit her nostrils before she even tasted it, and she sucked in her breath, shunning more of the fragrance. Cheap whisky was damn hard to swallow down without making a face, but so was life. And she made due.

She caught Michael’s stare, the golden lights underlining the luster in his hazel eyes. It provoked a smile out of her. “What are we drinking to tonight?”

“Does there have to be a reason?”

“When you’re the company? Yeah.” Maria brought the bottle to her mouth—“Hey!”

Michael had pried the bottle out of her fingers, and took another swig. “Magic cucumbers.”

Instead of giving him an earful, Maria bit her tongue. Michael had been there for her, in a much larger capacity than he had been before, ever since she had told him about her mother. He had listened to her at the Wild Pony. He had fucked her in different cities in Texas. He was comforting her in all instances. And now too, supporting her approaches, no matter his personal stance, it counted for something. Warring the sentiment from appearing on her face, she accepted the bottle from him again. “Magic cucumbers.”

The whisky burned as it went down her throat, but it didn’t matter. In spite of herself, Maria beamed. Who was she fooling? Certainly not herself. This was nice, and he might as well know that for now. They didn’t seek each other’s company for nothing. Her legs dangled over the ground, and Michael tapped his boot against hers, stirring her attention back to him.

“So, Alanis Morissette, huh?”

Maria creased her forehead, trying to follow the change of topic. “What? The song I sang? Did you google that?”

“Nah, Liz told me.” Michael shifted his bodyweight, resting on an elbow.

“You two have been hanging out a lot.” Maria quirked a brow, still uncertain about what they weren’t telling her. “What changed?”

“She needed someone to brainstorm with about an engineering project she’s working on,” Michael said, his hand waving the matter away.

“And your big brain was right there for the taking.”

Michael brushed his fingers through his messy curls. “I do what I can.”

“Oh, ok, fake humble. Wow. Michael—I got an answer to everything—Guerin, I’m discovering a new side to you.” Maria grinned when Michael’s features changed from expressionless to a sly smirk. A slow heat was starting to radiate through her chest.

“This is why I only handle people in small doses.”

“Oh, it’s me?” Maria took a mouthful of whisky while Michael’s smirk grew wider. “Not the lonesome cowboy routine you commit to perfectly? Drinking and goading anyone in your way until it gets you banned on a weekly basis? _So_ _dramatic_.”

“That, and it gets you worked up. There’s fun in that too.” Michael bobbed his head. “But back to the song… the lyrics contained something about swallowing?”

“Jagged little _pills_ , you dickwad.” Maria nudged him in the side, making Michael curl up and chortle. “Did your brain stop functioning when you read that word?”

“Brought some images to mind…” Michael sat straight, and put his hand over her fingers on the bottle, leaning in closer. “You seem really concerned about my big brain.”

“I never said big.”

“You did.” Michael raised an eyebrow, and gulped down more whisky.When she didn’t respond, but reached for a joint from her leather pouch, he spoke again, “You sing often? Never heard you at the bar.”

Maria shrugged, lit up the blunt, then took a long drag. “I’m usually working, Guerin.”

“All work and no play.”

“Brings in the big bucks.” Maria took another drag, then offered the cigarette to Michael. “But it’s good to let my hair down after.”

“Do you play any instruments?” Michael asked after he set the bottle between his thighs, and accepted the joint.

“Bit of guitar. Helps with the writing.”

Michael turned towards her, no longer looking at the quiet, dark void in front of them. “Writing? You write your own songs?”

“I used to. I tried to.” Maria lowered her head, noticing the tingles that appeared in her fingers. Right on course. The writing started young, and her mother was her first audience. Her biggest fan. It was her way of dealing with what the world threw at her. That, and what she was doing right now. “A long time ago.”

“Why did you stop?”

“My mom.” Maria’s voice became smaller, and she wrapped her hands around the edge of the trunk. “It takes too much time away from her.” 

Michael brought the blunt to her face. “Got it.”

“Real fun though when she’s requesting songs from me, not recognizing that I’m her daughter… but some entertainer.” Maria took the blunt, the cylinder almost finished, and took a some final drags. 

“You’re a good person, Deluca.”

Everything slowed down for her. The tension disappeared from her limbs, and when she sighed… it was out of relief. There was a calming buzz in the back of her mind that made her want to lie back and enjoy the fucking night. She did as she pleased. Scooting more into Michael’s truck, she put her head down, and stared at the starless sky. “I know… Only reason why I keep you around.”

“Keep me?” Michael stretched out on his side, his eyes still on her. The way she liked it. “The _only_ reason?”

“I can’t think of anything else.” Maria’s heart skipped a beat when she saw herself in his hazel eyes. She had always had a soft spot for strays. Rosa. Alex. Michael. Maybe because she had been one herself. Never quite fitting in. On the outside, looking in. Maybe, in a way, this was her mother’s legacy too. What her mother had done for Maria, maybe she could do for others. Giving was good, but that didn’t mean that she stopped craving things for herself. To be heard, to be desired, to be cared for… Sometimes it felt good to get too. 

“Not my big brain?” Michael bent down, his fingers skimming her jaw, disappearing into her hair. She sucked in her breath, a bout of jitters fluttering in the pit of her stomach. But she refused to give him the satisfaction and bit her lip, shaking her head from side to side. As Michael’s grin grew wide, he tilted his head and covered his mouth with hers in a slow kiss. So much for not giving in, Maria responded immediately when his tongue slid against her bottom lip. His deep-seated warmth was one of the most surprising and comforting things about him. Comforting and agonizing, because it made her long for so much more. When their tongues connected, Michael’s hand slithered down her neck to the side of her breast.

Maria pulled him closer, feeling his warmth all over her body, then nudged him away. “Not that fast, cowboy.”

“Uhh… ok.” Michael, slightly out of breath, cleared his throat and gave her the space she required. “What do you write?”

“I’m not telling you. What’s up with all these questions, Guerin?” Maria wasn’t sure why she had pushed him away. It was a good moment, any moment would do, but… she wanted to talk more. She enjoyed that too. It was comforting too. He wasn’t usually this talkative, so she wondered why things were different this time around. “You’re not taking pity on me, are you? Because I don’t want—”

“Nah, I’m not. It’s not like that.”

“Good.” Maria sat up, turning towards him this time. “Then… what about you? Why did you stop playing? What happened to your hand exactly? I remember you used to carry around a guitar with you in high school.”

“You remember that?”

“Oh, yeah, the lonesome cowboy act started early on. I can pinpoint it back to the tenth grade. You, tucked away in the back of the outdoor’s cafeteria, tinkering with a guitar.”

“You paid that much attention to me?” Michael cocked his head, and rested on his elbows. 

“No.” Maria glanced down his flexed frame, the planes of his upper body both hard and soft at the same time. Not having a desk job worked out in his favor. She shook her head. “It’s more… when people aren’t paying attention to you, you learn to notice the things that stand out more. People’s insecurities, their fears, and desires. Without knowing, without intending, they can make it so blatantly clear, if you pay attention.”

Michael lifted his eyebrows. “And what did you learn?”

“Something changed in our senior year, didn’t it?” Maria folded her arms together, bringing to mind what she knew about him. She had ample information on him, but they were indiscriminate or second-hand facts that she couldn’t connect to a bigger whole. He wasn’t as easy to figure out as other citizens of Roswell. But he didn’t need to know that. “I mean, it did for most of us in our year, but you didn’t really know Rosa, right? So, it was something else for you.”

“My hand got hurt.” Michael glanced at the sky. “And, uhh, I was trying to find myself in a new way.”

Maria nodded, taking in what he had said, what she saw in front him. His whole demeanor changed, and she wondered what the situations were that he was referring to. “Did you? Find yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said, and pressed his lips together. 

“You don’t know? A decade later?” Maria skimmed her short nails over his arm. The hairs on his arms stood up. “Don’t change the topic.”

Michael sighed wearily, seemingly ready to shut down or crack a joke. She took his battered hand, tracing the scar issue, and proffered an encouraging smile. His lashes fluttered down and he chuckled to himself. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know shit. Where I’m from. Who my parents are. Who I am.”

“Will knowing fix what’s broken?” Maria squeezed his injured hand gently, and when he didn’t respond, she continued, “I don’t know what the answer is for you, Guer, but for my mother… for me, yeah. I think it could. It has to.”

They didn’t talk, not for a good while. Michael had nodded in understanding, squeezed her hand back, then stared into space, lost in thought. Maybe she had pushed him too far, she could never tell with Michael. He didn’t seem to have limits when her jibes were in good faith, merely playful bantering. Kindred spirits sharing a vernacular. But when it came to heart-to-hearts… yeah, he tried to stay far away from those. They were still holding each other’s hand, so maybe he deserved more credit than that. He hadn’t pushed her away. That was usually her role.

A chilly breeze swept over her body, settling into her bones. The effects of the alcohol waning. Maria hunched up, curling an arm around her legs, and shivered. Michael released her hand, and moved to the back of the trunk. After some shuffling, Maria didn’t care to look, a thick blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, shielding her from the cold.

When Michael sat down next to her again, closer this time, her mouth curved into a small smile. She hadn’t pushed too far. Shaking off the gloomy feelings she had allowed into her mind earlier, she nudged him a little. She was ready for things to turn back around again. “Do you fuck people in here on the regular, or something?”

“What? Oh, no, that—it’s a safety net.” Michael’s eyes widened, then knocked a finger against the pickup truck. His voice sounded much louder when she had been confined by silence for far too long. “Before the trailer, this truck had been my constant.”

Maria simpered, the choice of words amusing her. “How romantic. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“What can I say? Objects complete me.” Michael winked at her.

Maria threw her head back in laughter, shaking her head. “How long have you had the trailer?”

“Been a while now,” Michael said thoughtfully as he blew out some air.

“Be specific.” 

He wrapped an arm around her. “Nine years.” Michael leaned closer to her face as if to check whether she was satisfied with that answer. She rolled her eyes—yes, she was satisfied—then shared a smile.

The last thing she wanted to do was judge. His youth was hard, the parts she knew about, and she couldn’t imagine the parts she didn’t know about. “You’ve had a safety net for that long?” Maria asked, understanding clouding her features. It made sense, she supposed, it explained why he was so guarded.

Michael shrugged, and pulled the blanket around her tighter, then licked his lip. “Might as well put it to good use.” With a bit more pressure, Michael dragged Maria towards him… back on his mouth, back to his warmth.

Another language they were fluent in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated.  
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://existentialmalaises.tumblr.com/).


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